The Van Life Money Calculator™

The Van Life Money Calculator™

You've done the research.
You still don't know if you can afford this lifestyle.

You have information. What you don't have is your own numbers.

Built by a Federally Credentialed Enrolled Agent (EA), a federally licensed tax professional, who lives full time in a van and does this math on herself every year.

The real problem

There's a fear that doesn't get talked about
in the van life community.

It isn't the fear of being alone on the road. It isn't the fear of giving up your house. Those get discussed constantly.

It's the quiet one. The one that shows up at two in the morning, when you're doing arithmetic in your head that you already did at dinner.

  • What if I spend the savings and it doesn't work
  • What if the van breaks down somewhere expensive
  • What if I'm seventy-four and the money is gone
  • What if I do this and then have to go back

Here's why more research hasn't fixed it. Every budget you've read belongs to somebody else. Their rig, their fuel habits, their insurance, their income, their idea of comfortable. None of it is yours. You can watch a hundred videos and still not know your own number, because nobody has ever asked you to run it.

You don't need more van life content. You need your own numbers.

C

I'm Catina. I've spent nearly twenty years in the tax and financial industry, and I now live and work full time on the road with a nine-pound Havapoo named Henry. I built this because I was tired of watching women talk themselves out of a life they could actually afford, and watching others launch on a number that was never going to hold.

The framework

The 3-6-9 Buffer™

Three funds. Each one does a different job, and mixing them up is how people end up broke on the side of a highway with money they can't touch.

3
3-Month Living Fund
Your actual expenses, not an average
6
6-Month Freedom Fund
What turns "I have to" into "I choose to"
9
$900 Breakdown Buffer
Towing, alternators, batteries

You build it in the other direction. The $900 Breakdown Buffer comes first, before the van, before you give notice.

The Breakdown Buffer is the one people get wrong most often. It covers vehicle repairs and safety-critical costs. That's all. It is not a power station fund, not a gear fund, not general savings. Once your income steadies, it grows to $1,500 or $2,000 so it can absorb transmission work. Even then it won't cover catastrophic engine failure, which runs $4,000 to $6,000, and that's what roadside assistance and financing are for. The goal is to handle the eighty percent of breakdowns that actually happen.

The number that decides

Fully built, this system runs $17,100 to $32,400.
That is not the number that decides whether you can go.

The full stack is a multi-year target. It is what you're building toward, not what you need in the bank on your first night. Most people see a figure like that and quietly close the tab, and they close it on a life they could have started this year.

The number that decides whether you can go is much smaller. It's your $900 Breakdown Buffer plus one to two months of living expenses.

If you live on Per month Minimum to launch
Lean $1,800 to $2,500 $2,700 to $5,900
Comfortable $2,500 to $3,500 $3,400 to $7,900
Thriving $3,500 and up $4,400 and up

These are ranges built from real van life spending, not national averages. The Calculator narrows them to one figure using your income, your rig, and the way you actually live. If a $900 repair would be a financial catastrophe for you right now, that's timing information, not a verdict on whether this life is for you.

What you get

Three pieces. One afternoon.

📊
The Van Life Money Calculator™ Google Sheet
A prebuilt spreadsheet that calculates your exact buffer amounts, compares your current cost of living against your projected van life costs, and shows you a green or yellow traffic light on whether you're ready to launch. No more wondering whether $2,000 a month is enough for someone in your situation.

Traffic Light indicators are decision-support tools, not guarantees.

Woman using The Van Life Money Calculator spreadsheet on laptop
🎬
The EA Insight Training Video
I walk you through the entire spreadsheet, show you how the 3-6-9 Buffer™ works when real money is moving through it, and explain how to read your result. The research is already done for you. Fuel, campsite rates, Starlink, insurance, all of it is built in, so you aren't opening fifty tabs to sanity-check a number. This video comes with the Calculator and nothing else.
EA Insight Training Video for The Van Life Money Calculator™
📄
The 3-6-9 Buffer™ Breakdown (PDF)
The framework in writing, so you can keep it somewhere you'll see it. What each fund is for, what it is not for, what order to build them in, and how to tell when one of them is finished.
The 3-6-9 Buffer™ Breakdown PDF Guide

Investment

$37
  • Less than a tank of gas in most of the country
  • Less than one night at a paid campground
  • Four percent of the $900 that has to be saved before you go anywhere
  • Less than a tow truck, and knowing your number is how you afford the tow truck
If you later decide you want the Van Life Foundations Manual, buying this first doesn't cost you extra. Calculator purchasers get an upgrade offer toward the Manual by email.

Not sure this is the right first step?

Then don't buy it yet. Book a free fifteen-minute Curiosity Call and tell me where you're stuck. If the Calculator isn't what you need, I'll say so and point you somewhere better. There's no pitch on that call.

Book a Free Curiosity Call

Questions

Frequently asked.

This is a digital product and all sales are final. You get the Google Sheet, the training video, and the PDF the moment you buy, so there's nothing to send back. What I will do is make sure it works. If a formula misbehaves or a link won't open, write to me and I'll fix it for you.
Depends on what's stopping you. If the money question is the thing keeping you awake, start here. It's the fastest path to your own number. The Foundations Manual is the whole system, insurance and domicile and healthcare and the rest, and it does include the Calculator Google Sheet, though not the EA Insight Training Video. Plenty of people buy this first and upgrade later, and buying this first doesn't cost you extra when you do.
If you can fill out a form, you can use this. The Google Sheet is already built. You type your numbers into the cells that are meant for typing, and it does the calculating. The training video walks you through every step at a normal human pace.
When you open the file it will prompt you to make a copy. Save it somewhere you'll find it again. It's yours to use and come back to whenever your situation changes.
The calculator has protected cells to stop accidental changes from breaking the math. If you get a warning when you try to edit a cell, that's on purpose. Enter your numbers only in the designated input cells. If something has already been changed and the totals look wrong, go back to your purchase email, open the file link again, and make a fresh copy to start clean.
No. This gives you the math. A Compass Call gives you strategy, accountability, and someone to think through the hard decisions with. Think of the Calculator as the prerequisite. It tells you which questions are worth an hour of my time.

You've done the research.
Now do the math.

Waiting doesn't improve the number. It just means another month of carrying the question around, and another month where you can't tell whether you're being responsible or being scared. An afternoon with a spreadsheet ends that either way.

You might find out you're closer than you thought. You might find out you need nine more months. Both of those are better than not knowing.